Kobe

April 25th
Kobe, Japan

Today was my first overnight port on this ship, and the first time we were all allowed to get off in Japan after a few weeks, so I was planning on having a good night in Kobe. I got off the ship around 5:00 that day with 4 of my friends (Mario, Terry, Garreth, and Micha) ready to have a long night on the town. We started out by taking the train into the center of the city, not to far off from where the ship was docked, and set our first objective at getting a good meal. After a while of searching and being reminded how cool Japanese cities are, we found a local place that seemed perfect. We sat down, and after the usual communication difficulties, ended up ordering a number of dishes, ranging from sashimi to strange appetizers including soy beans covered in raw egg. Most dishes were great, the raw egg was not, and we ended the meal with about a $12 charge each; but in true Asian food fashion, we were soon hungry again. After a while of walking the streets trying to get a feel for the area and scout out some jazz clubs we were hoping to visit later, we made our way to a hotel and shopping mall where we were able to stave off our lingering hunger with some Wendy’s, I had a frosty. The hotel we were sitting under was probably one of the nicest in the city, not to mention the tallest, so most of us took the elevator up to the top to do some site seeing while my one friend, Garreth, stayed below and waited. When we all got to the top, we found a really lovely restaurant and bar, and after some Japanese guy showed us around and pointed out the view, we sat down and a couple of my friends felt obligated to celebrate the moment by ordering $8 beers, something I passed on. So as we sat and enjoyed the view at the top, about a half hour or so went by till I remembered we’d left a friend down below waiting for us. I quickly left the party to find him and let him know what was going on, but by the time I had gotten back to ground level, he’d left for other adventures (I guess sitting around in the cold just wasn’t all that exciting). My friends eventually made it down and we the now smaller group departed.
From there, we started looking for a place for dinner. I had my mind set on finding some Kobe beef, something famous all over the world. Kobe Beef comes from cows that are treated like kings up until they’re slaughtered. This includes, feeding them only the best food, raising them on the best fields, daily massages, and even serenading them with guitars. This makes for a very happy cow, a very tender meat, and an extremely expensive dish. I knew all this before hand and was prepared for a price that was to be 10 times more expensive than a similar portion at home. We located a place after some searching via a “recommended steak house” map, and sat down to order our $60 meal. We sat where we could see the chef make the meal, a process that took a total of 5 minutes. After quickly grilling the outside of the steak, he sliced it up, positioned it on what reminded me of a plate for fajitas, covered it with onions and potatoes (fries) and a little butter, had a side of lettuce, and lit everything on fire with whatever oil he was throwing on the dish. It was quite the spectacle to see the highly specific preparation, but quite another thing to eat it. The steak, being prepared so quickly, was certainly rare with a cool red center, but I’m not about to argue with the chef as to how to prepare it. The taste though, was great. In all honesty, maybe not worth the $60 I spent, but still, probably the best flavor I’ve had from a steak. Again, a little pricey, but one more thing I can say I was able to do and check off my list, so I’m glad for that experience.
Next, we needed money after being wiped out by dinner. Micha (who’s the music director and therefore my boss) was able to get some money out of an ATM which lasted the rest of us the night. The first thing that money was used for was beer. Maybe it was a bad idea to go out with my Russian director for just that reason, but I wasn’t about to spoil the mood, and we all located some steps to sit on and watch the crowds as we drank on the street. Apparently it’s totally legal to drink on the streets in Asia, something we were unaware of, but glad to later find out we weren’t risking getting thrown in jail. We saw a few people we knew from the ship and hung out probably for an hour not doing much more than watching Japanese people before we figured out it was getting late nd should probably find a jazz club. We started looking for the places that we’d previously scouted out, along with anything else we came across along the way, all of which were closed! Apparently, the live music stops fairly early and is replaced with a Japanese club scene, not exactly what we had in mind. After some time of walking around and running into fellow crew members, we lost another of our group, Terry, to a taxi on it’s way back to the ship. And then there were three.
So now it’s Mario, Micha, and myself (the three M’s now that I think about it) wandering the streets. At this point, the Russian director was absolutely blasted, and certainly acted the part. Somehow, he’d gotten the idea in is head that he wanted a massage that night, and his drunken objective overcame anything Mario and myself had in mind, so we followed our fearless (blasted) leader. It was pretty funny, though, watching a drunk Russian speaking English to every Japanese guy he could find about where the good massages were. And as long as I was having a good time watching Micha, I didn’t quite mind where we ended up, we had all night anyways, so there was nothing to worry about. Well, that might have been the wrong attitude.
We eventually came to a street where a cute Japanese girl came up to me asking if I wanted a massage. And me, excited that I could tell Micha I found what he was looking for, quickly pulled him over where he became very happy to discover what I’d found. (now for those of you thinking massage might mean massage plus something else, yeah, you’re right, and that’s certainly what Micha had in mind, me, not so much. But I was having fun so I was just following along at that point). These Japanese girls then walked us over to the elevator that took us up to the massage room, which was a large, dimly lit room, where each massage booth was little more than the massage table with curtains surrounding it. I laid down on the table and the girl started walking on my back, something I haven’t quite had done before, and after about 15 minutes, she stops and brings over a menu of options. First problem – the menu’s totally in Japanese, so I can’t read a thing. Second problem, the one thing I could read, “VIP – 1hr”, was priced at $150. At that point, after checking and rechecking my price conversion in my head, yelled over to Micha’s booth asking if he’d seen the menu prices. He had, but being so drunk, was considering the price, not to mention considering paying for mine as well. After about 10 minutes of yelling back and forth through this curtain, I’d convinced him that $150 was way more than anything he expected to get out of it, and as soon as that clicked in his Russian mind, than that flared his temper and we quickly left. Now, it was still hilarious being there, seeing this setup, and talking to Micha, so I’m glad for the experience, but it’s another thing to check off my list and never do again. I’m just glad we were able to get out with out a problem and without someone taking our wallets (my first concern when I walked in the place).
So we left the building and got back to the street, where we realized Mario didn’t actually follow us in. We started walking around looking for him, but had absolutely no idea where he would be. I figured he’d probably return to the massage place in 30 minutes or so, but we weren’t about to sit outside of this place we’d just rudely walked out of, so we started walking. Micha, not having learned his lesson, continued asking everyone where he could find a massage, which eventually brought us to some guy who enjoyed discussing the massage scene with Micha in full detail. Luckily enough, however, Mario found us as we were talking to this large Indian man and his Japanese friends, and after the two of us dragged Micha away from his new friend, we figured he wasn’t getting any better and opted to take a cab back to the ship. And after the usual language struggle trying to communicate “ship” via charades and pictures, we found a cab that returned us to the port around 3 AM. And there ended my night, yet another overnight that will be carved into my memory for some time to come, and provide many more hours of entertainment through it’s retelling – and you read it here first! Anyways, there’s going to be another one in a week, maybe I should start preparing now. Thanks for reading!